CNN poll shows Romney still holding all early states, barely

Upheaval in the polls has been a mainstay for quite some time now in the GOP field. Lately, businessman Herman Cain had stepped into the mantle of “front runner” in a few national polls, however, a CNN poll released today shows Mitt Romney still holds at least a slight lead or tie in every early state.

(CNN) – Mitt Romney is on the top or tied for the lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination in new surveys in the first four states to vote in next year’s primary and caucus calendar.

According to CNN/Time/ORC International polls released Wednesday, the former Massachusetts governor continues to be the overwhelming front-runner in New Hampshire, holds a lead over the other GOP presidential candidates in Florida, and is basically tied for the top spot with businessman Herman Cain in Iowa and South Carolina.

On the national level, a recent Fox News poll shows Cain leading by a few points over Romney:

A Fox News poll released Wednesday shows support for Cain has quadrupled among GOP primary voters since late August. At that time, he stood at 6 percent. After three September debates, he jumped to 17 percent. And now Cain leads the pack at 24 percent.

While it’s the first time Romney has trailed Cain, it’s the second time he’s been ousted from the lead since July. Romney receives 20 percent — a new low for him but still within the margin of error of 5.5 percent among Republican primary voters. Romney was at 23 percent last month and a high of 26 percent in early August.

In the grand scheme of things, the state level polls give us a better indication of what is going on in the ground game. It is interesting that Romney continues holding on, especially being only a few points behind in Iowa where he essentially has conceded that he isn’t trying to win the Hawkeye State caucuses.

Nate Ashworth is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Election Central. He's been blogging elections and politics for almost a decade. He started covering the 2008 Presidential Election which turned into a full-time political blog in 2012 and 2016.

22 COMMENTS

No chance that Romney will not be the nominee, and he will be destroyed by Obama. There is a strong populist sentiment in the country and Romney is on the wrong side of the issue. Wait until you see the adds on his forclosure comments and his various flip flops.

At least Romney is being honest about the forclosure issue, Obama continues to feed that dead horse with taxpayer money. Government can’t fix it. If you want forclosures to decline then put people to work. Obama has failed miserably at doing that.
Don’t be so certain that Romney will win, did anyone think that Cain would be a front runner two months ago? It can all change. Gingrich is coming up in the polls he just needs to get out there and do some serious campaigning, Huntsman is beginning to be noticed and Perry could still make a comeback. At this point I wouldn’t even bet against Ron Paul.
Personally, I’d like to see Gingrich debate Obama, BO wouldn’t know what hit him.

When Romney runs against Obama, Romney will win by at least 54-56 to 46-44. If any of the other jokes–oops, excuse me–candidates run against Obama, we will have four more years of socialism and the USA will likely be in such a hole that it cannot recover. It’s funny that some people say they don’t want Romney because he flip-flops and they want the “straight-shooting” Cain. The funny part is that Cain often flip-flops within the same sentence. “I am totally 100% pro life, but I don’t believe the government has any say in the decision about abortion; it’s up to the family, the woman.” Huh?

Don’t count Herman Cain out in Iowa. Iowans like hearing any message straight, honest and without the embellishments of typical politicians. His messages are all of the above. This is not to say that Iowans are simple people, this is just saying that Iowans want the message to be straight forward and honest.

Herman Cain is more of the same… If you want a real plan that doesnt involve feeding you more government look no further than Ron Paul… Partyline voters cant ignore how popular he is with the military and as a NAtional Guardsman I seem to think that if you gave a damn about us or my buddy that just stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan then youd be voting for Ron Paul and telling all your partyline friends about him as well… Hes the only one that is serious about balancing the budget.. Hes the only one that has been calling this monetary disaster for thirty years and hes the only that ISNT serving special interest because he doesnt do favors because he is a strict constitutionalist.. So what excuse do you have now? He hates Israel because he wants to cut aid to not only them but everybody else because we here in America could probably benefit more from it than they could… Anti-Semetist huh? Try telling that to this Jew<—–

Carole said, “Don’t count Herman Cain out in Iowa. Iowans like hearing any message straight, honest and without the embellishments of typical politicians.” Are we thinking about the same Cain, Carole? Are you speaking of the one that that was asked clearly if he would consider releasing all prisoners in gitmo for one of our pow’s and he repeated the question back and answered, yes, he would consider doing that. Then he later said he must have misunderstood? Or are you speaking of the Cain that spoke about an 8 foot electrified border fence and later said he was joking (joking about killing people)? Are you talking about the Cain who did not know that China is a nucular super power and has been for almost 50 years? Do you speak of the 999 candidate until it was proven that it was a failure and he changed it to a 909 plan? Maybe this is the Cain that survived stage four cancer only to encourage cigarette smoking in his ads? Or is this the Cain that did not remember anything about sexually harassing any woman or making any settlement only to have his recollection evolve during the day to the point that he recalled those two “false” accusations in detail by days end and warned us that there may be more woman coming forth with more “false” cases? Is that the straight-shooting Herman Cain of whom you speak?

I think that each debate gives us a better idea of which candidate is best prepared to be our next president. During the last debate, Perry came off as a bully and Santorum seemed a bit whiny. Romney was his usual arrogant self. Ron Paul has great ideas for the long term, but nothing substantial to offer in the very short term where we need the most action. I am concerned that, if elected, Cain will spend too much time trying to pass his 9-9-9 plan leaving jobs on a back burner. Bachman speaks in politician-eze prefacing every statement with “This is a real issue”. I really believe Gingrich is the only member of the field with the intellect and decorum to lead our country through the domestic and foreign policy issues we face right now.

Barbara and Karen, should we just forget about the fact that Gingrich is totally immoral; that he has cheated on three wives and divorced his second wife while she was dying of cancer so he could marry his secretary? Come on, people, has our country slumped that morally low?

Let’s start by getting our facts straight. Gingrich has been married three times. In 1962, he married Jackie Battley, his former high school geometry teacher, when he was 19 years old and she was 26. They have two Daughters. In the spring of 1980 they separated and Jackie filed for divorce. In September, Newt took their children to visit their Mother in the hospital after an operation for a benign tumor – not Cancer. She is still alive and well and was never “dying of cancer” as the MSM would have you believe.
Six months after the divorce from Battley was final, Gingrich wed Marianne Ginther in 1981. In 2000, Gingrich married his current wife, Callista Bisek shortly after his divorce from Ginther. They have been married for 12+ years and he has accepted peace with God and converted to Catholicism – Callista’s religion.
In a 2011 interview with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network Gingrich addressed his past infidelities by saying, “There’s no question at times in my life, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate”.
None of us is perfect. If you wish to keep the most conservative, intelligent, experienced and capable man out of the office of POTUS for past transgressions in his personal life, that’s your business. But these are the facts. Would you tell the most qualified surgeon he can’t operate on your tumor because he has been married three times?

Ron Paul has better chances of winning the nomination compared to Romney and Cain. He just won 2 straw polls in Iowa this past weekend, taking 82% of the vote. He won the Ohio straw poll a few weeks ago, and the media didn’t even report when he easily won the California straw poll. Texas cancelled their straw poll for fear that Rick Perry would lose it to Ron Paul. Everyone needs to do themselves a favor and learn about Ron Paul and what his actual stance on critical topics is. The major media news outlets are going to present Ron Paul in a negative light, because he will not help the media get any bigger than it already is. There is no incentive for the media to have Ron Paul be president. In fact, a Ron Paul presidency would affect major media news outlets negatively. We – Ron Paul Supporters – understand this and make sure to do everything we can to discredit the news. We understand that no one is perfect, but if you a true believer in what our founder’s intended for this great nation to be, than you simply can not vote against Ron Paul during the primaries; it’s that simple.

I agree. He’s the only veteran of the candidates. He’s the smartest and wisest of them all (Dr. Paul). He warned us of the depression coming. Cain is a joke. Obama has failed us. Romney isn’t going to change anything and the rest of them won’t be in the race much longer. It will come down to Obama, Romney, and Paul. Our nation needs to make Paul win the GOP primaries and then the general election.

I am leaning more for Ron Paul than before. I do not trust the rest of the field to do anything nearly as drastic to get our country back on track. Only Ron Paul has said how he will cut government. I have not heard one iota about cutting government from any of the other candidates. We do not have a revenue problem… we have a spending problem Ron Paul is the answer.

I have been studying Dr. Paul for years and I find no flaws. He is winning polls and sitting steady in the top tier. As soon as people get the facts that:

He has NEVER voted to raise taxes.
He has NEVER voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has NEVER voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has NEVER voted to raise congressional pay.
He has NEVER taken a government-paid junket.
He has NEVER voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
He voted AGAINST the Patriot Act.
He voted AGAINST regulating the Internet.
He voted AGAINST the Iraq war.
He DOES NOT participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.
U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000

Let’s remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:

Annual family income: $21,700.
Money the family spent: $38,200.
New debt on the credit card: $16,500.
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Total budget cuts: $385.

Does this clarify it ?

This is why America
really needs Ron Paul as President. Numbers do not lie.
Ron Paul will be the nominee in 2012

True, some diehard democrats won’t vote for him, but then of course there’s some republicans who won’t vote for him (because he threatens their status quo.) But many democrats are very dissatisfied with the economic situation and the rampant militarism both parties have put our country in the middle of. People are protesting Wall Street and that those big companies that received bailouts are screwing over the little man. Ron Paul is out there saying, hey, by government propping up those big companies and creating hurtful policies, the government was the key instrument in screwing over the little man. I think that message will resonate with many democrats.

Some say Democrats won’t vote for Ron. They’re half right. Some Dems and a lot of independents will vote for Ron because they feel strongly about the war issue, and our Nobel Peace Prize winning President Obombya hasn’t quite lived up to their hopes.

Mitt Romney is the complete package. I think he is the one who can help all the different problems our country faces both domestic and international. He is one man that I could trust by his demonstrated devotion to his family, faith in God and Jesus Christ, and his beloved country.

i agree with leslie!
mitt has his head on straight, is confident and honest, has seen success in politics and the private sector, and will get enough votes to get obama out of office. makes the most sense!